Men Who Stitch Part 2: Adipocere

Words Jana Roose |

July 18, 2016

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Here’s a friendly PSA: If your pupils dilated the second you set eyes on these stitched pieces and your hands are floating over to your keyboard like curious ghouls to Google ‘adipocere’, just make sure you add ‘embroidery’ at the end or you will freak harder and faster than a cat staring down the barrel of a cucumber. “Unfortunately it was very much an accidental pseudonym for my embroidery,” says Melbourne-based artist Josh (a man of mystery, he’s asked for no last name to be published). “I have always had a fascination with words and the macabre, so ‘adipocere’ was just one word I found interesting at the time when I created an Instagram account. Later, when embroidery became a consistent part of my life, the name stayed.”

Having always been drawn to slower-paced artistic mediums – he dabbled in stop-motion animation before this – stitching rose to the top of Josh’s list of things to try and just over two years ago he created his first piece: a cross stitch of a ‘face hugger’ from the Alien film franchise, accompanied by the text “Free hugs”. “It was a template I found online, which helped teach me the basics of needle and thread work. I did my first embroidery soon after, and that’s that,” he says. He was sunk in love with the process.

While the most an average citizen can do with a spool of thread is use it as a yo-yo when no one wants to hang out on a Friday night, Josh coaxes goats, cats, lunar emblems, skulls and flora out of it, some stitched smaller than the size fingernail. He begins with a sketch in water-soluble marker then stitches over it, filling the image in small increments, each stitch a single pixel that is often unpicked to make minor-degree adjustments. “Animals appear more through a reflection of self, as an animal lover,” he explains. “I’m often trying to convey a certain emotion through what I sometimes refer to as ‘emotional self-portraiture’. An animal is usually essential to the desired overall mood.”

Josh stitches mostly on linen, but sometimes he’ll make like Johnny Knoxville and embroider straight into his skin. “I’m always looking to try new things. I really like the idea of expanding the medium. I’d also seen a conceptual piece by Eliza Bennett where she embroidered her skin. I wasn’t looking to make any profound political statement with mine, my skin is literally just another material to experiment with – and that’s precisely what interests me,” he says. Up to this point he has worked only on the palm of his hand, and both the results and the fleeting nature of it are something quite beautiful, but he sees the benefit in trying other body parts too as it would leave both hands free to stitch. And for those who are wondering: nope, it doesn’t hurt; it’s the disinfectant alcohol that stings the most.

His work has been translated onto skin in other ways, too. “I was a bit surprised how many people wanted to appropriate my embroidery for their tattoo,” he says. “Roughly 60 strangers have committed to skin based on my work that I know of. All people I’ve never met personally.” Josh splits his time between embroidery, a Bachelor of Environmental Science, and shift work at a plastic distribution company. “I get no enjoyment out of my current work in plastic distribution,” he says dryly. He’s looking forward to working in conservation in the future, but until then he is only at the foot of the mountain in terms of what he wants to achieve with embroidery. “I’m currently harvesting abandoned spider webs, which I untangle, clean, and re-structure to create my own thread. Hopefully I’ll have yielded enough to embroider with within the next year.”